Fact of the day

Information is the most powerful weapon.

Monday

Fact N°
862

Eating a handful of cashews with an orange can help prevent prostate cancer.

The statistics are daunting: One out of every six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in their lifetime, a full 240,000 each year. 27,000 will die. Researchers don't know what causes it, so they can not -- and do not -- tell us how to prevent it.
In fact, the Mayo Clinic asserts that no definitive nutritional guidelines are in place because research has yet to prove of such a way to prevent prostate cancer. At best, some studies suggest some potential benefits to eating tomatoes and fish while avoiding fat.

Tuesday

Fact N°
863

Over 31% of U.S. households have at least one cat.

Don't look now, but cats may be gaining the upper paw in their long-running rivalry with dogs.
According to the most recent edition of the American Veterinary Medical Association's U.S. Pet Ownership & Demographics Sourcebook, while more U.S .households actually have dogs (36% to 31%), more cats call these households home (69 million to 62 million).
The relationship between dogs and humans is older, dating back 12,000 years, and until recently it was believed cats and humans only went back 5,000 years. That all changed with the 2001 discovery of a 9,500-year-old grave on Cyprus with a human and cat buried side by side.

Wednesday

Fact N°
864

Tonka Trucks were named after Lake Minnetonka in Minnesota.

The word "tonka" means "great" in Sioux.
Four of history's most popular toys were invented within four years of one another.
In 1943 an engineer for General Electric was working on a substitute for rubber when he accidentally created Silly Putty. That same year, after watching the end-over-end action of a fallen torsion spring, a marine engineer created the Slinky.
Then, in 1947, a Danish carpenter replaced wood with plastic to make interlocking bricks, launching Lego. That same year the Mound Metalcraft Company, originally founded to build gardening implements, created their first Tonka truck.

Thursday

Fact N°
865

Humans shed approximately 1.5 pounds of dead skin a year.

Not unlike reptiles, we humans shed our skins too, but in a far less ostensible fashion. We drop about 1.5 million skin cells every hour in an effort to earn a new surface of skin about every month. The final tally comes out to around 1.5 pounds per year.
Now do the math: Ignoring variables, by age 30 you will have shed the dead skin equivalent of the standard 45-lb weightlifting bar at the gym.

Friday

Fact N°
866

In 1920, half of all cars in the United States were Model T Fords, a record that has never been beaten.

Considering the scores of automobile manufacturers in existence during the first part of the 20th century, this record is impressive.
Ford launched the innovative and affordable Model T in 1908. When he perfected his moving assembly line in 1914, a chassis could be assembled in 93 minutes -- a fraction of the time it used to take.
The Model T proved so successful that from 1917 to 1923, Ford had no need to buy advertising. When he rolled out his ten millionth vehicle, Ford secured an equally impressive record: His company had produced a full 90% of the cars on the road, worldwide.

Saturday

Fact N°
867

Giraffes, camels and cats are the only animals that walk by moving both their left feet, then both their right feet, when walking.

Well, they're not the only animals to do it, but it's a very exclusive group, since the overwhelming majority of creatures in the animal kingdom walk in sequence: left, right, left, right.
The curiosity is that researchers can find no evolutionary point to the gait. Having also failed to link giraffes, cats and camels beyond this idiosyncrasy, they have yet to uncover what, if any, distinct advantage this oddity offers the animal.

Sunday

Fact N°
874

The longest recorded time that a human has gone without food is 70 days.

Have you ever wondered why angry people hold hunger strikes and not thirst strikes, or oxygen strikes? Probably not.
There's a handy old mnemonic about the general limits of human endurance: three minutes without air, three days without water, three weeks without food. In a world of extreme sports and competitive eating circuits, humanity has pressed each detail well beyond these numbers.
An inmate at Maze Prison in Northern Ireland survived a 70-day hunger strike; the unconfirmed record for days without water is an arid, thirsty 11; and cases of so-called "cold water drowning" have documented survival beyond 30 minutes without oxygen.